Things weren’t supposed to go this way. This was supposed to be a buildup to Thanksgiving week, with fun, lighthearted posts about recipes and Black Friday deals. Yay! Shopping! And now, none of that seems right anymore. Not after Ferguson. On Monday November 24th, in an evening announcement that seemed poorly planned to say the least, it was announced that the grand jury did not indict Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown. What does that mean? That means that Darren Wilson gets to walk free, after all of the protests and righteous anger and calls for justice.

CNN predicts there will most likely be a more stringent federal probe and a wrongful death lawsuit – click here to read their predictions. For the black community on the ground in Ferguson as well as in major US cities like NYC, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago, it meant protesting in the streets and making our voices heard in the dead of the night. And so many of us are now left wondering “now what?” How can we express this rage and this pain caused by a system that is broken, a system that fails to value our lives as equal? How can we speak truth to power and have the hope of making some kind of difference, some kind of essential statement that proves that we have value greater than what society seems to perceive?

The overwhelming cry I’m seeing from my online community is BOYCOTT. Some people are calling it BLACKOUT Friday. Some are calling it Black Owned Friday. Some are using the hashtags #BlackOutBlackFriday, #NotOneDime, #HandsUpDontSpend, #BoycottBlackFriday, #BrownFriday and #ShopBlack, others have adopted the slogan No Justice, No Profit. No matter what you call it, the sentiment is the same and the statement is clear. Economic activism is a time-honored tactic that notably proved effective during the Montgomery bus boycott. It is a way to send a message to the government, big business, all while simultaneously bolstering our nationwide community. Click to read more about the impending boycott via the Chicago Defender, the Washington Post, and MSNBC. Click here to visit BlackoutFriday.org, which breaks it all down.